Westbury Place by Edwidge Danticat is a story about a young girl who is telling the story of the time she left her apartment in Westbury Court. The girl tells this story for a few reasons. The reason why she left was not the typical reason people move. It all started one day while she was watching the soap opera General Hospital. The World of General Hospital is made- up therefore it seems perfect. However, the character's lives on the show are scripted, and we simply cannot script our own lives. During an episode of the soap opera, a fire had started in an apartment across the hall. In that apartment lived a mother and her two boys. Unfortunately that day the two boys were left alone and the one boy got a hold of matches and decided to fool around with them. He had no idea what he was doing and as a result, he accidentally started a fire in his apartment. Other people in apartments nearby were forced to evacuate.
One reason why this girl told her story is because her mother told her "This is what happens to children who play with matches. Sometimes it is to late to say, "I shouldnt have". Two points from this story are not to play with matches, and the bigger point is that things happen that sometimes we wish they didn't. It is hard because we can't go back in time and change it, but the only thing we can do about it is to sit back, and say "I shouldn't have" like the mother told her daughter. Having some bad happen and not being able to fix it, and saying "I shouldnt have" really bites because saying "I shouldnt have" wont change anything. I shouldnt have said this, I shouldnt have done this, I shouldnt have went this way, I shouldnt have ate this are things we can say as a result of what occured, but we can't change what happened.
The structure of this essay is the character gives us a background with a hint of what happened, and then goes back in time to explain the story. Then the story goes back to the present and readers are told what the character is up to now.
The other reading assignment was Alive by Laurie Lynn Drummond. This story is different from Westbury Place in a few ways. For starters the plot is different as well as the style. In Alive, we meet a female character who is telling the story of a serial killer on the lose. She goes on to finish some errands and notices a creepy man who happens to be everywhere she goes. She thinks maybe its a coincidence, but when she takes a slightly different route from the man, she notices that back on a different road, the driver in the vehicle behind her is the same man. At this point the driver feels very nervous and uncomfortable and just wants to get away.
The points of this story are to always be alert and to not dismiss the "buddy system". It is very important to be aware of your surrounding wherever you are. Also it is better to be with someone that alone in certain situations. For instance when someone is leaving their night class and is parked far away, they should find someone they know to walk with. Two people are better than one.
The structure of this story is not in the way it is structured but it is in the use of the realistic and vivid descriptions and story line. This story creeped me out because it felt so real. The writer of Alive wrote this story in a way that the reader can picture it and feel the same way as the character did in the story.
Nuisance Tripping
9 months ago
1 comment:
Regret is one of the most useless human emotions, but we can’t escape it. To say you regret action X requires you to immediately add a parenthetical “because it meant Y and Z to me” – forcing yourself to evaluate whatever it was. On the other hand, denial of regret is denial of meaning, which usually means you’re deluding yourself. Both these stories (among other purposes) showcase the sudden infusion of meaning into events – they don’t piss and moan, but neither do they brush the painful moments off. Danticat especially reveals how life doesn’t stop for those in it – people regret all over the place in this story – the mother of the 2 possibly dead kids, Danticat herself for not supervising her brothers correctly. I don’t think she tries to explain the nature of regret so much as she just shows us exhibit after exhibit, and we’re forced to philosophize on out own.
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